Mt. Popocatépetl is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, and only 43 miles away from Mexico City. Approximately 25 million people live within a 60 mile radius of the crater. So when the mountain does something, everyone sits up and takes notice. On Monday night at 9:38 PM a massive explosion sent a column of volcanic ash almost a mile into the sky. The explosion was loud enough to shake doors and windows in the city of Puebla.

The mountain has been increasingly active in recent months, and authorities are currently preparing for the worse case scenarios. They have drafted a special evacuation plan for locals in case there is a more violent eruption.

Scientists say that the volcano is capable of producing a catastrophic eruption. Popocatépetl is considered the most dangerous volcano in North America in terms of explosive activity and threat to populations. The current moderate scale can switch fairly quickly to a large, catastrophic Plinian eruption, the largest and most violent of all volcanic eruptions.

Wikipedia defines a Plinian eruption (or Vesuvian eruption) as similar to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, which destroyed the ancient Roman cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Such eruptions are marked by columns of volcanic debris and hot gases ejected high into the stratosphere, the second layer of Earth’s atmosphere. Key characteristics are the ejection of large amounts of pumice and powerful continuous gas-driven eruptions. Short eruptions can end in less than a day, longer events can take several days or even months. The amount of magma erupted can be so large that it depletes the magma chamber below and causes the top of the volcano to collapse resulting in a caldera. A disaster that could potentially kill millions.

Popocatépetl had a dramatic effect on the ancient Aztecs. Giant mud flows covered entire Aztec cities and some were so large they buried entire pyramids in super-heated mud. We haven’t seen anything like that in modern times, the mountain had been dormant for a very long time before becoming active again in the 1990s.

Remember that our West Coast from Alaska and the Aleutians all the way down through Chilé is part of the “Ring of Fire,” with Mt. St. Helens which did erupt in 1980, Many of our other mountains are also dormant volcanoes – Mt. Rainier, Oregon’s Mt. Hood, to mention the more famous ones.

Illegal arrivals at our southern border are at a ten-year high, with no signs of abatement. U.S. authorities say the situation is completely unprecedented and nearing a full-blown crisis.

Democrats clearly want open borders: the Sanctuary cities, refusal to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), issuance of voter registration with drivers’ license applications, and the presence of illegals on most construction sites and waiting out front of Home Depot early in the morning for jobs, among other things, makes it fairly obvious that they oppose border walls and any effort to cut down on the cheap labor they find so useful. Their fight against any border wall, any barrier, and the constant lies about how cruel ICE and the Border Patrol are –”ripping little children from their mothers’ arms,” confirms their partisan political bias.

To the contrary, Border Patrol officers spend a lot of time trying to save lives, rescuing illegals from the rivers, too deep and swift, or stranded in the desert with no water or food, abandoned by smugglers.

The excuses multiply. Walls don’t work! A foolish statement. Why do our penitentaries have walls, why do most countries have walls, why do gardens and playgrounds have walls, why does your office have cubicles? Why do Democrats refuse to support legislation limiting the vote to citizens, and why do they resist any attempt to make voters prove their identity and residence.

According to CBP’s preliminry figures 76,325 illegal aliens were apprehended at the border in February – more than any month in over a decade. A record 40,325 family units arrived. It used to be that illegals were mostly young men who were processed and returned to Mexico within days. Now it is family units who ask for asylum. Now approximtely 25 percent of agents are pulled off the line daily to address the humanitarian crisis, acting as child care providers, and over 1,000 rescues so far this year. There are over 200 cases of mumps in one Texas Detention Center!

It’s that red line! Click on the image, then ‘view image’ to enlarge. From CBP.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says smugglers on the border with Mexico are using “recycling rings” – that is children are passed back across the border to allow other adults to pose as family units to get entry. Little children are pawns. Family units who ask for asylum are held for 20 days, given a court date and released into the country, never to be seen again, the kids are passed back across the border to aid another asylum request. The “zero tolerance” policy on family separations has just made the sitution worse.

California’s new Leftist Governor Gavin Newsom has been grandstanding about suing the Trump administration over its construction of a forbidding big concrete border wall. Just yesterday a truck carrying 22 illegal immigrants simply bashed through the existing aging corrugated junk metal fencing with a heavy smuggling vehicle — terrorist style, in San Diego. This is a U.S. Customs and Border Protection photo;

President Trump tweeted what may or may not have been a triumphal direct response, but it certainly works like one. Speeded up bit to get the construction impressively faster to completion. Take that you doubters!

There are people and organizations in Central America urging people there to go to America, and if you have a child with you they will have to let you in, they have shortages now of enough people to fill the jobs, so you will be able to get work. They are told to turn themselves in to the nearest Border Patrol once they cross the border, and ask for asylum. Who’s behind all that ? I don’t know, but it is clear they have had instructions. Is this the Democrats who want more bodies for the 2020 Census? Or the Democrats who want more Democrat voters? Has your district gone Democrat yet? I certainly do not want to suggest that there is anything nefarious about the opposing political party who have been suggesting everything from assassination to impeachment on a daily basis.

ADDENDUM: President Trump asked Congress for $5.5 Billion for an urgently needed border wall, Nancy Pelosi snarkily offered $1. Congress appropriated $!.5 Billion. Mick Mulvaney checked around the administration, and found $600 million in the Treasury Department in forfeited funds, $2.5 billion in Defense Department Construction funds, and some they feel that they can spare from other programs, and it adds up to round $8 billion. Naturally, there will be great wailing and gnashing of teeth among the Democrats who can’t stop making fools of themselves, but there you go.

From Victor Davis Hanson:”The New Nihilism:” Summing up the Democrats’ response to President Donald J. Trump, and his many, many accomplishments. Not a pretty picture.

From Steven Camarota of CIS: “On Immigration, Trump Needs to Focus on the Numbers” For all the talk about the border, the biggest issue is not welfare or illegal immigration per se; it is the total number of immigrants settling in the country ,legally or illegally. Democrats focus on amnesty, Businesses push for ever more guest workers, and the media happily supports both. The national interest and his political future depend on the numbers.

From Andrew R. Arthur of CIS: “Notes on a Deal I Haven’t Seen: The Pitfalls of Compromise” The fundamental issue behind all of this is the request for crucially needed infrastructure along the border. I mean fences, walls, barriers, drag roads, cameras, sensors and any number of other tools needed by the 18,600 Border Patrol agents who man the 1,954-mile southern border.

We assume that the illegal border-crossers come from Mexico and Central America, many come from the Middle East as well.

A crowd of about 400 protesters rallied in front of the White House on Monday, carrying signs that called President Donald Trump a racist and claimed a wall on the U.S. Border with Mexico is a symbol of the rise of white nationalism under this administration.

The Wall is racist, and the Border Patrol are torturing the migrants who are in custody after illegally crossing the border into the United States. That was a speaker with Amnesty International, who added that “bridges are better than walls, love trumps hate, no human being is illegal, and we are all, by virtue of our shared condition guaranteed the same human rights.” Neither original thought or meaning are required when you are being passionate, purile and protesting.

January 2019 saw surge of 22,000 more apprehensions of illegal immigrants at southwest border crossings over January 2018. Border officers, it is predicted will make over 600,000 apprehensions this year. The increase over 2018 was 84%.

Democrats want more voters, and illegals who can be registered to vote are likely Democrat votes, and they want them counted in the upcoming census to increase their numbers in the 2020 census, and thus their number of representatives in the House. That the American people will have to pay for Welfare, Food Stamps, medical care, education for the children, is not mentioned in all the compassion that expects other people to pay, is not mentioned, of course.

Democrats call all Republicans racist, of course. That is their ultimate epithet, useful in all circumstances. Obviously, since Trump declared a national emergency at the border, it could only be because the illegals have brown skin, instead of the white skin preferred by white supremacists.

Democrats insist Trump can be challenged on his use of emergency authority since they do not believe an emergency exists on the southern border. They will fail spectacularly if the case gets to the Supreme Court. While the source of funding can be challenged, there is no compelling basis to challenge the national emergency declaration.……………………………………………………………..William Jacobsen

Trump’s actions have been greeted with now-familiar claims that he is sparking a constitutional crisis or threatening the rule of law.

Considering just the substance of what Trump has done, these are large exaggerations. Everything Trump proposes to do purports to be grounded in congressional statutes and much of what he aims to do does not rely on emergency power. Trump is not relying solely on Article II executive power, and he is not invoking executive power to disregard a congressional statute. Moreover, the statutes in question expressly give Trump authority in the areas in which he claims them.…………………………………….Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith

Just another day like all days with Democrats seething with ginned-up rage, trying desperately to find the ultimate insult that will make the gap toothed ignoramuses from flyover country go back into their holes and never talk to them again.

President Trump did exactly what he said he would, and declared a national emergency over the border, and of course the Democrats exploded in feigned outrage. I did mention that Obama declared a national emergency something like 13 times, so the hissy-fit seems somewhat misplaced, but of course it is all in the preparation for the upcoming court fights. Democrats want open borders. The illegal votes are important for them, and they’re hoping to switch enough votes in targeted states to increase their control of the House of Representatives to make it more permanent. They really don’t like to be out of power.

And of course, they deny every tiny bit of information on which the president has based his declaration of an emergency. Fewer illegals crossing the border now, no drugs except at the ports of entry, and they’ve given more money for technology to find the drugs that are coming through. Attacks on the president’s character, his information, his knowledge, and the usual claim that his only possible reason for not wanting illegal immigrants from Central America is that they are “brown people.” And how interesting that at the same time, they refuse to see or acknowledge the ‘Angel’ families who have lost members of their family to criminal illegal aliens.

Some of the vast field of would-be candidates for the 2020 nomination are joining the push for tearing down existing walls. Pandering to the illegals already here for their illegal votes? Nancy Pelosi outlined the Democrats game plan early on. The governing law is the National Emergencies Act of 1974. The Free Beacon covers the law thoroughly, Everybody plans to sue, picking the most favorable to their cause venue, and it will wind its way through the courts, probably ending at the Supreme Court. White House lawyers seem to believe they have a winning case.

Democrat’s position on the border has been clear for some time. Obama’s invention of the DACA amnesty was clearly illegal, and the results have been even worse than anticipated. Few have gone to college, and a large percentage never finished high school. The fraud rate has been estimated at 40%-50%, and very few have enlisted in the military. What is most discouraging is the Left’s drive for absolute power which is more appropriate to other kinds of governance like Russia or China. What’s the old saying –”Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The results are playing out for all to see in Venezuela, where children are starving to death, because there is no food, and Maduro will not relinquish the presidency even though he has been voted out legally. Nor will he allow the food aid we have sent – into the country. Wonderful system, socialism.

Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies talks about the poorly understood cost of immigration on our public schools. We have already heard that our public schools aren’t doing a good job with history, but immigrant children must come to the point where our history becomes their history of their country. That’s what assimilation is all about. This is a short video, but an important one for understanding the problems.